It seems to me lately that video game developer are doing their best to bring us back to what man consider the golden days of gaming; the 80′s.
Now that the video game children of the 70′s and 80′s have grown up, they too are making games for current-gen consoles, which leads to a slew of titles that reference or follow up on older titles.
Bionic Commando and Street Fighter 4 are both sequels to classic games from the 80′s, Castle Crashers and MadWorld pay tribute to good old arcade style beat-em-ups, and Ghostbusters: The Video Game takes us back to a film franchise established in 1984.
- Are these blasts from the past a good thing?
- Wouldn’t original content be better than repeating older formulas and merely tread new skin over old games?
- Are you pining away for the golden days of gaming?
I’ve always pined for the golden days of gaming. Ever since I first played Flimbo’s Quest for the c64, I’ve been travelling backwards in time rather than forward.
I would much rather spend £200 on older consoles, controllers and games than I would a new 360 (or PS3 – yes you can get them that cheap).
As such the whole idea coming back to this heyday of gaming is one I like, the issue is simply the way they make it happen. Some developers have decided to simply update the old game graphically, others have decided to make a brand new game with the original style of the old (Mega Man 9 comes to mind here).
I do think the best example of a throwback to the 80′s is the game “Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard”. It wasn’t a great game, but one of its major injokes was the return of a character who’s best days were in the 80′s. A character who never existed.
This is practically what all the other comebacks are doing. Seriously, how many members of the modern gaming community even remember the original Bionic Commando?